The Religious-Liberty Showdowns Coming in 2017: In 2017, Trump’s administration—backed by a Republican-controlled Congress—will take up pending religious-liberty questions in all three branches of government. Every issue will come saddled with this fundamental conflict: Some groups’ claims to religious liberty may necessarily involve curtailing the rights of others.

The Joy of Things and the Trap of Excess: An ethicist and an anthropologist ask, How much is too much? This article reviews two new books on whether we own our possessions or they own us. Both understand material goods and consumption as not inherently evil. Our things can be a means of encountering the divine, “the […]